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Allegations about Reform candidate’s posts are troubling, Labour says

Published

7 days ago

May 20, 2026

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The former co leader of the Green Party in England and Wales, MP Adrian Ramsay, said on social media that “progressive parties need to recognise that the big threat to the country is a Reform-led govt. And in my view avoiding that will involve some give and take from everyone. Burnham must clearly set out his position on a fair voting system.”

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French Open 2026: Swiatek through, Djokovic and Svitolina in action on day four – live | French Open 2026

Published

58 minutes ago

May 27, 2026

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Key events

And Trungelliti quickly secures a hold to leave Khachanov needing one of his own to stay in the set at 5-6. Can he get his head right? Or are we, somehow, going to a decider? either way, the underdog is enjoying his day, celebrating his points in grand style and milking the increasing enjoyment of the crowd.

Svitolina closes out a bagel set against Quevedo, while Rublev leads Carabelli 1-1 5-2. Back on Mathieu, meanwhile, though Khachanov saves break point with a big serve, a monstrous forehand from Trungelliti raises another … then an inside-out forehand lands just wide of the sideline and, from 0-4 down, the Argentine levels at 5-5! I can’t imagine an easier ball to win a match than the one Khachanov missed – genuinely, I think I’d have stuck it away, likewise the one before it that wasn’t dismissed.

Oh my goodness me! Khachanov takes control of what is surely the final rally, Trungelliti just about staying in the match, retrieving pending the inevitable winner. But when he lands a ball just over the net, which bounces up in friendly style to allow the winning putaway … Khachanov totally misses his shot! In comms, they think it’s stress but actually, I’d put it down to carelessness – mentally, he was celebrating – and as I type, he finds himself down advantage! This isn’t over yet.

And he gets himself to 15-30 but, when he misses a shot on the baseline, allowing Khachanov a forehand winner, he hugs a security guard in disappointment. Further flat forehands then come at him, he can’t respond, and is now match-point down at 5-4 40-30 in the fourth…

Lovely stuff! Trungelliti slices an outswinging backhand winner, securing a hold which forces Khachanov to serve for his spot in round three, noising up the crowd in celebration. He’s given loads to this game, his ballsy, imaginative style great fun to watch but impossible to sustain.

Before it’s played, let me let you know that Svitolina has raced to a 4-0 lead against Quevedo; now it’s been played, I can advise that Trungelliti is now up advantage, and Rublev has saved four break-back points to lead Carabelli 1-1 4-1.

And a terrific leaping backhand overhead makes 0-30, Khachanov saluting the crowd, but a storming forehand winner halves Trungelliti’s deficit. And another big forehand seizes control of the next rally – it takes two overheads to finish it when really one should’ve been enough – for all the good it does him, Khachanov unleashing a forehand barrage of his own to raise match point.

Trungelleti forces Khachanov to 30-all, but from there, the no 13 seed closes out, and is now a game away from round three.

Rublev has also righted himself, earning break point and sending back a high-kicking return that incites Carabelli to net a forehand; he leads 1-1 3-1. The bounce on these courts is quite something, almost like on hards, as if Jannik Sinner needed another advantage, but if the weather holds, I wonder if we might see some of the clay specialists sent home sooner than expected.

Down 2-4 in the fourth, having taken a break back, Trungelliti secures a hold with a big ace out wide, and he might just be enjoying a second wind; Khachanov leads 2-1 4-3, but will now serve under a little bit of pressure.

Thiago Tirante beats Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 4-6 7-6(4) 6-1 6-3

It’s a funny thing, really: I once spoke to an agent on behalf of a young tenniser, and the first question he asked me was how tall is he? Yet Tirante, “just” 6’1, is the fastest server on tour and in the tournament, and he’s through to face either Kokkinakis or Carreño Busta. I’m excited to see how he progresses, because Fritz, Lehecka and Davidovich Fokina, the highest seeds in his eighth, have gone.

Not quite yet, Rublev coming back to hold for 1-0, while Khachanov now leads 2-1 4-1, Trungelleti’s legs quitting on him. Meanwhile, we’re away again on Chatrier, the question – not one that’ll be answered today – whether Svitolina is finally ready to take a major. In Madrid, she lost in the first round to Bondár, but then in Rome, she beat Baptise, Rybakina, Swiatek and Gauff en route to the title. That is qiote some work.

As we feared, Trungelleti has gone. He takes a break between sets, still loses his serve twice at the start of the fourth, and Khachanov leads 2-1 3-0. On Mathieu, though, it might just be a different story, Carabelli levelling with Rublev at 1-6 6-1 and making 0-30 at the start of the third. We shall see.

De Jong is through, beating Cina 3, 1 and 3; replacing them on Court 6 are Navone and Mensik, who are level at 3-3 in the first.

Next on Chatrier: Elina Svitolina (7) v Kaitlin Quevado.

She says that Bejlek has a tricky game, breaking rhythm. so she needed to adjust to that, likewise the lefty serve out wide.

Otherwise, on her new coach, Francisco Roig she says it was good to start the clay-court season in Majorca and they speak the same language – he wants for her game what she wants for her game. With every coach, there’s a different approach, but she’s adjusting.

Finally, asked by Henri Leconte about how she’ll spend her time off, given generally speaking, she likes to see the places she visits, she confides that this year is more about cuisine. She has a chef from Roland-Garros in the evening, so is exploring healthy French food; there are loads of things she’d like to do, but they’ll probably have to wait until she’s finished playing.

Khachanov breaks Trungelleti to secure a 6-1 third set and with it a 2-1 lead, which means, finally, we can go to Swiatek’s interview…

On the other hand – or maybe the same hand – Carabelli is bang into it against Rublev, up 4-0 in the second set having lost the first 6-1. We’ve got to assume it’s a purple patch that will soon expire, but against an opponent given to imploding, he might not need to play that well for that long.

Khachanov is racing away with it against Trungeletti who, as we’ve seen so often, has a decent top level but can’t sustain it through a five-set match – can anyone? So, now he’s cooled, he’s finding his modal level isn’t high enough when faced with an opponent this good.

Iga Swiatek (3) beats Sára Bejlek 6-3 6-3

It wasn’t as easy as the scoreline suggests – Bejlek offered a challenge on return, just couldn’t hold serve – but Swiatek is through. Next up: Ostapenko, against whom she’s 0-6, or Linette.

Er, or not. Again, Bejlek is broken, meaning Swiatek is now serving for the match.

Oh have a look! Bejlek breaks yet again, doing brilliantly to stay in the decisive point before directing a forehand to the tootsies; the pick up goes into the net. That’s 38 unforced errors Swiatek’s made today, and this match might just be getting close.

When less heralded players take on seeds, it’s often not the top level that gets them but the consistency, and that’s what happens on Lenglen, Trungelliti – who played beautifully in set two – handing Khachanov a break to love that he didn’t have to earn. The Russian leads 7-6 5-7 2-0.

Rublev is playing nicely, rushing to a 6-1 first set against Carabelli, but will this be the major he finally beats a player seeded higher than him? In his eighth is Alex de Minaur, who he definitely has the game to bin, but does he have the head?

Again, Bejlek just can’t consolidate, broken by Swiatek for 6-2 3-1, but the four-time champ looks a lot less than impregnable here. Of course, she’ll improve through the rounds as she does, a relatively friendly draw facilitating that, but she’s seeded to meet Rybakina in the semis, and that’s a match that’d need the best version of her or close to it.

Tirante, who serves faster than anyone on tour, has taken the first set against Davidovich Fokina to lead 4-6 7-6 6-1. I daresay the hard courts and quick ball-speed are helping him in that regard.

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…Trungelliti has a set! An ace down the T levels the match at 1-1, and this is brewing into something extremely intriguing.

It’s all going on: Bejlek breaks Swiatek but can she consolidate – she trails 2-6 1-2 having not yet managed so to do; Rublev breaks Carabelli for 3-1 in the first; and Trungelliti has 40-0…

Swiatek breaks Bejlek for 6-2 2-0 but let’s go back to Lenglen, where Trungelliti, who looks not unlike Danny from Withnail, has a break point … and he stays in the rally, then casually flicks a drop that’s far too good! He leads 6-5 in the second, and will serve for it following change of ends.

Photograph: Aurélien Morissard/AP

Photograph: web

I don’t suppose anyone will be surprised to learn that Khachanov has three break-back points … and he takes the first, so leads 7-6 5-5 and looks just too good to lose to Trungelliti, well though he’s playing.

… but Khachanov responds well, battling to deuce before securing the hold; Trungelliti will now serve for the set at 6-7 5-4. Meantime, Swiatek is forced to and from deuce and advantage in game one of set two, but she gets there in the end, leading Bejlek 6-2 1-0.

Trungelliti holds for a 5-3 second-set lead and when an inside-out forehand from Khachanov drop wide, he’s two points from levelling the match … make that one, a forehand dumped into the net making 15-40…

On 14, Tirante took the second-set breaker to level with Davidovich Fokina at a set apiece, then broke at the start of the third for 1-0; Wang, the no 32 seed, also levelled her match at one set all, Korpatsch taking the opening game of the decider; and De Jong now leads Cina by two sets and a break. He, you may remember, beat Jack Draper in the 2024 edition of this competition, also taking a set off Carlos Alcaraz when they met thereafter, and saw off Stan Wawrinka in round one, so he’s got some game.

Though Swiatek isn’t really at it, Bejlek can’t play well enough for long enough to compete seriously, immediately handing back a set point before offering an overhead to seal it, the four-time champ punishing a winner to lead 6-2.

I’m enjoying Bejlek’s approach to this match, really attacking her forehands. It’s not working perfectly, but it’s a necessary tweak to enable her to live with the best around and evidences the aggressive mindset necessary in elite sport. At 15-40, though, she faces two set points … saving both …. and over on Lenglen, Trungelliti breaks Khachanov to love, leading 3-2 in the second having lost the first 7-6.

The left-handed Bejlek powers a sensational forehand winner down the line to raise break point at 1-5 and, though Swiatek saves it, she sends down a double to hand it back … then another. It’s probably too late to affect the outcome of this set, but at 2-5, the youngster is still in it.

Next on Mathieu: Ugo Carabelli v Andrey Rublev (11).

On Chatrier, Swiatek now leads Bejlek 5-1, but it hasn’t been as easy as the score suggests; on Lenglen, Khachanov leads Trungelliti 7-6 1-1; Korpatsch leads Wang 6-2 2-4; Davidovich Fokina leads Tirante 6-4 6-6 (3-5); and De Jong leads Cina 6-3 6-1 1-0.

Bencic is into round three for the first time since 2022, correcting the interviewer who says it’s 2019 and she’s delighted – she had good success at Roland-Garros as junior.

Mcnally is a very tricky opponent who isn’t easy to play, changing rhythm well, specially on clay, but she settled well and is happy.

On family life, she says “We’re living beautiful moments, I love to be a mum,” and is delighted to have her daughter in Paris with her.

Belinda Bencic (11) beats Caty Mcnally 6-4 6-0

Bencic does what she needs to do, easing through to a third-round meeting with Snigur or Stearns.

Mcnally has fully gone, broken again, and at 6-4 5-0, Bencic will shortly serve for the set.

While all that was going on, Bencic broke Mcally again for 4-0, and she’s almost into round three while, on Chatrier, Bejlek gets on the board only to be broken again; she trails Swiatek 3-1.

A backhand to the baseline from Khachanov is too good, Trungelliti unable to get it back and ceding three set points. The first vanishes when Khachanov goes long on the forehand; the second looks set for conversion when a colossal serve out wide captures momentum, but Trungelliti sticks in the point and elicits the error; oh, but have a look! The third, on return, sees him out wide to retrieve a high-kicking serve, Khachanov gets it back into play … then monsters a backhand winner down the line for to secure the set! He leads Trungelliti 7-6(5).

Swiatek breaks Bejlek for 2-0 and Bencic consolidates hers to lead Mcnally 6-4 2-0; Khachanov is up 4-3 on serve but oh, Trungelliti bets a forehand and, at 5-3, is in bing trouble.

Khachanov holds, then secures an immediate mini-break and, ultimately, this looks like one of those matches in which you know the favourite will find a way to do whatever is asked of him to win. Oh, but Trungelliti recovers it and we’re back on serve at 2-1, after which, consternation: Khachanov tries a moon-ball, it hits the overhead camera, and costs him a point; 2-2.

Bencic, up 6-4 0-40, hooks a terrific forehand into the corner for an immediate break in set two, and Mcnally is not enjoying this, at all – she just cant hit her spots consistently. Meantime, Trungelliti holds for 6-5, meaning Khachanov must do likewise to force a breaker in a set he looked to have won.

On Chatrier, Swiatek is preparing to serve against Bejlek; I’m excited to see how the youngster does, and how one of the most meticulous players on tour handles someone she’s never barely seen.

Khachanov saves another break-back point but Trungelliti earns another and they swap loopy, high-bouncing forehands … until the underdog tries a drop. Khachanov hares in to return it but cedes initiative in the process, and though he then has a chance to finish the rally with a forehand, he overhits, and we’re back level at 5-5, Trungelliti saluting the crowd and enjoying his morning.

Bencic, serving at 40-15, comes in to meet a loopy return, and though she doesn’t finish the point, Mcnally dumps her riposte, and that concludes a 6-4 set, taken by the no 11 seed.

Trungelliti tries a drop that works nicely for 0-15, so goes again next point and nets; no matter, a big forehand is backed up with a leaping back, and that’s 15-30. And, well, ahahaha, you’ve got to laugh: all that work, quickly eradicated by an ace down the T … but just as Khachanov unloads on forehands that look definitive, Trungelliti gets one back then creams a glorious backhand winner down thew line to raise break-back point. For all the difference it makes, a big serve out wide dulty cleaned up towards the opposite corner; deuce, while, on Mathieu, Bencic makes it seven consecutive points in racing to 40-0 and three set points.

I don’t think I understand why the stands are so sparsely populated; surely they could just charge less to give the players, tournament and sport the crowds they deserve? Anyroad up, back on Mathieu, Mcnally again breaks Bencic back, and again, Bencic unloads on return, racing to 0-40; a fifth double follows, Mcnally tossing her racket in frustration, and the Swiss leads 5-4; she’ll serve for the set after change of ends, likewise Khachanov on Lenglen.

This is so tangential and obscure, even for me, but the name Tirante reminds me of one of the most luminously brilliant concerts i’ve ever been to, Ludovico Einaudi’s Taranta! It’s not his usual classical thing, but a collection of incendiary folk tunes – Ferma zitella is our family favourite, but they’re all worth your time.

This is the difference with Bencic: once, she might’ve lost confidence and discouraged herself, but now, she immediately restores her break for 4-3. Meantime, on Lenglen, Trungelliti is starting to ask questions of Khachanov, who leads 5-3 having held under pressure, while Davidovich Fokina is up 6-4 0-1 on Tirante.

Of course, as I type, she’s broken back for 3-3 but, as we said at the top, Mcnally is a tricky test and a battle not unlikely.

Bencic looks a slightly different player since returning from maternity leave. I’m not going to attempt any cod psychology about a sense of perspective and wellbeing, but it’s hard not to. Of course, she’s still got a no-show in her – remember her Wimbledon semi against Swiatek – but she’s no longer one of the mist likely seeds to suffer an upset.

We’re away on all courts bar Chatrier. On Lenglen, Khachanov leads the unheralded Argentine, Marco Trungelliti, 4-2; on Mathieu, it’s Bencic 3-2 Mcnally, with a break; and elsewhere, Davidovich Fokina, who came through a marathon against Damir Dzumhur, leads Tirante 5-2; Korpatch leads Wang 3-1; and Cina leads De Jong 2-1 with a break.

Preamble

Salut et bienvenue à Roland-Garros 2026 – quatrième jour!

And into round two we go. We open today with a nasty one for Belinda Bencic, the no 11 seed taking on Caty Mcnally while, at the same time Karen Kahchanov returns – and, an hour later, so too does Iga Swiatek, the four-time champ facing the Czech youngster, Sara Bejlek.

The match of the day, though, could well come on Court 4, where Marta Kostyuk meets Katie Volynets and Joan Fonseca faces Dino Prizmic, the 20-year-old Croatian who’s beaten both Novak Djokovic and Ben Shelton this clay-swing. That said, don’t be sleeping on the tussle tucked away on 13 between young Americans Alex Michelsen and Nishesh Basavareddy, conqueror of Taylor Fritz.

Otherwise, we’ve plenty of big names getting to it – Elina Svitolina, Elena Rybakina, Andrey Rubelv, Jasmine Paolini, Mirra Andreeva, Karolína Muchová, Hailey Baptiste and more – some of whom will presumably be involved in epics, the joy that of them that, at this stage, we can’t predict which. And if to that we add Fran Jones – coming off the biggest win of her career against Bea Haddad Maia – against Marie Bouzkovà, Ugo Humbert v Quentin Halys and Casper Ruud v Hamad Medhedovic, we have another day of compelling Grand Slam Tennis^TM to elevate and enrich our existence.

Chauette! On y va!

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Body found in search for boy missing at beauty spot

Published

2 hours ago

May 27, 2026

info@oxinfo.co.uk

A major search was launched for the teenager who went missing at Pickmere Lake in Cheshire.

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Blair says Labour needs debate before selecting new leader as he criticises Burnham speech – UK politics live | Politics

Published

3 hours ago

May 27, 2026

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Blair says Labour needs debate about policy before it chooses new leader, as he criticises Burnham’s 40 years of failure claim

In his Today interview, Tony Blair said Labour needed to work out its policy agenda before choosing a leader.

Asked what he would say to Labour members being asked to choose between Andy Burnham or Wes Streeting, Blair replied:

My advice is choose your direction first and make sure that before you have any leadership change, you make all the candidates set out in detail their policy, what the Government’s got right, what it’s got wrong, what we should do differently.

While Blair praised Burnham in general terms, he also said the Greater Manchester mayor was wrong to argue, as he did in a speech last week, that government policies over the past 40 years have let voters down.

Blair said:

I hope Andy wins Makerfield, I think he’s a great guy, I want to see him in parliament.

But you know, when he does this thing about 40 years of wasted … what, nothing good happened in that period of Thatcher with the business community, or New Labour?

I don’t think he really means that, but what I’m saying, if you’re going to change leader, you’ve really got to force people to say where they stand, because otherwise you’ll be in what I think was always a problem for Keir – and I’ll be very honest about this, and I like him and I wish him well – but when we switched from that Corbyn agenda, there wasn’t enough explanation.

Not as to why Corbyn was an election loser, that was pretty obvious, but why the whole agenda was wrong.

You have to explain to people why it’s wrong if you want to lead the party in the future in a coherent way.

Key events

Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, posted this on social media about Tony Blair’s latest intervention this morning.

Tony Blair.

What the billionaire class have paid for.

And in a post commenting on a Guardian story headlined “Tony Blair says Labour must abandon net zero, support Trump and move firmly to the right”, Patrick Harvie, the former co-leader of the Scottish Greens, said:

Spot the difference between “Tony Blair says” and “Nigel Farage says”

Reform UK accused of being ‘soft on Putin’ after revelation about candidate seemingly backing invasion of Crimea

David Cameron was ahead of his time when in 2009 he warned against the dangers of social media, and Twitter, with the quip “too many twits might make a twat”. They are not laughing in Reform UK where Robert Kenyon, the party’s candidate in Makerfield, is now being faced every day with a barrage of questions about historic social media posts that were sexist, offensive – or worse.

Some of them were covered on the blog yesterday, here and here. As Peter Walker reports, in other messages Kenyon appeared to express doubt over the seriousness of Covid and the efficacy of vaccines for the virus.

But new revelations are potentially even more awkward for Reform UK.

As Pieter Snepvangers and Charles Hymas report in the Telegraph, a post has emerged showing Kenyon saying that Russia was “within their rights” to invade Crimea in 2014.

In an online forum, in response to someone who posted in March 2014, just after the Russian invastion of Crimea, saying “the people of the Crimea want to be in Russia, for me that is democracy in action”, Kenyon replied:

I agree totally, Russia are well within their rights to do what they have done, as we did with the Falklands. However, will Latvia be next?

Robert Kenyon social media post Photograph: Daily Telegraph

In response, a Reform UK spokesperson told the Telegraph:

At no point did Rob explicitly support or endorse Russia’s actions in Crimea. He is fully opposed to Russia’s illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine. We fully back Cllr Kenyon. He is an excellent local candidate, who we are confident will be a superb MP for Makerfield.

But this comment is unlikely to stop Kenyon’s post as being seen as fresh evidence of Reform UK’s pro-Russia leanings. Nigel Farage has supported the Kremlin argument that Brussels provoked the Russia-Ukraine war by offering Ukraine EU membership, and Nathan Gill, the party’s former leader in Wales, was jailed for taking bribes to deliver pro-Russia speeches when he was an MEP.

Commenting on the Telegraph story, Luke Pollard, a defence minister, said:

Nigel Farage has again chosen a candidate who promotes Kremlin talking points and makes excuses for Putin’s unacceptable actions against Ukraine.

While we stand with Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression, Robert Kenyon has shown he’s completely out of step with the British people.

And James Cartlidge, the Conservative defence spokesperson, said:

Nigel Farage must immediately condemn Robert Kenyon’s posts justifying Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Crimea.

For too long, Reform has tolerated pro-Russian voices who excuse Putin and his brutal actions towards Ukraine.

The Conservatives are and will always be clear, we stood with Ukraine in Government and we stand with Ukraine today. If Nigel Farage is unable to condemn his candidate in Makerfield, it will only show that Reform are soft on Putin, soft on Russia.

Donald Tusk says defence treaty he’s signing with Starmer means UK’s pledge to Poland goes beyond Nato guarantees

Jakub Krupa

Jakub Krupa writes the Guardian’s Europe live blog.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has said a new Polish-British defence and security treaty to be signed today in London will focus on countering the long-term, strategic threat posed by Russia.

Briefing reporters before leaving for the UK, Tusk suggested the treaty – to be named after the RAF Northolt base which hosted Polish pilots during the second world war – will go beyond previous deals agreed in 2017 and 2023, and include provisions for mutual security assistance outside Nato’s article 5 framework.

Tusk said the bilateral treaty would mean Poland could count on the UK for a “rapid bilateral response … before a decision is made by all 32 Nato members” in the event of a conflict.”

He went on:

And as you know, in today’s reality … speed of response, adequate response, is something that will matter in a conflict.

The treaty also includes provisions on military cooperation, including procurement, drones, air defence and cybersecurity.

Britain already has similar deals with France and Germany, while Poland signed a similar agreement with Paris last year.

Blair hits out at Guardian, as he defends his stance on Trump, and being part of US president’s “Board of Peace”

It is not just Keir Starmer and almost every other senior figure in the Labour party who have been getting it in the neck from Tony Blair today. In his Today interview, Blair was asked by Nick Robinson about the Guardian pointing out that Blair is urging the UK government to get closer to Donald Trump. That provoked Blair to reply like this.

The Guardian – you’ve got to love them. I always used to say when I was prime minister that the most the greatest source of election losing advice was always from the Guardian.

On Trump, Blair said:

I’m not saying the Labour party should love Donald Trump, get close to Donald Trump. I’m simply saying the American relationship matters to Britain.

Blair also defended his role as a member of the executive board for Trump’s “Board of Peace”. He said:

We put together a plan that ended the war [in Gaza]. Now, at the moment, you’ve still got some fighting going on. You’ve still got a dire situation for the people.

This next week we will have further negotiations with Hamas because we need to move this new government into Gaza. And we need Hamas to agree that this government should be in control of Gaza.

So it’s a very tricky, difficult situation.

But we have if the plan is allowed to work, it will give Gazan people a fresh start with a new Palestinian government and a large amount of funding behind it.

Blair said Trump’s “Board of Peace” itself was sitting leaders. He said he sat on its executive board, which served underneath it.

(After it was launched, the Board of Peace was memorably described as looking like “a cast of Bond villains, plus Tony Blair”.)

Blair does not deny contemplating launching new centrist party during Corbyn era

In his Today interview, Tony Blair was asked by Nick Robinson about reports that, during the Jeremy Corbyn era, he considered setting up a new party. Robinson said that Blair’s long essay read like it had been written by a man “who wishes he had done it”.

In response, Blair did not deny the central claim. He said:

No, I don’t wish I’d done it.

But I think a lot of the issues that were raised at the time are still there and with us.

Look, my whole belief about the Labour party, it’s had 120 years of of history. It’s been in power really for about a quarter of that time. And the reason for that is what I always call the birth defect of the Labour party, when you separated the liberal progressive side from the Labour side, and New Labour was an attempt to fuse those two things back together. And that’s why we won successive elections.

The trouble is, since then we’ve moved away from that. And you do have, I think, this unrepresented centre in British politics. And I think it’s basically a supply problem and not a demand problem.

Blair never got anywhere with his plans to launch a new party, but it has been reported that this went beyond idle talk, and that people were approached about funding the project. This is what Tom McTague, now editor of the New Statesman, said about this in an UnHerd article last year.

In public, Blair insisted that he was not in any way “advocating a new party, organising one, or wanting to vote for one”. However, he had concluded that the Labour party was finished, according to someone who shared his views, and was involved in discussions about a new party. “He would tell those who thought otherwise that they were being nostalgic,” said the same associate. “He felt that too many in the party could not reconcile themselves to the reality that Labour was simply irrecoverable, passed its sell-by date.”

Blair says Labour should get rid of Ed Miliband’s net zero targets

Tony Blair has also given an interview to Times Radio. In it, he said the government should abandon its net zero target – implying that, if that meant Ed Miliband felt obliged to resign as energy secretary as a result, he would not view that as a problem.

Asked if he was proposing getting rid of Miliband’s net zero targets, Blair replied:

Yes, I am, and I’ll tell you exactly why.

It’s not that I’m against renewable energy, clean energy, and it’s not that I’m a climate denier.

It’s coming to terms with this reality: the three biggest emitters in the world today are China, America and India. Together they account for just over 50% of global emissions.

All of them are pursuing cheap energy and electrification. Doesn’t mean to say they’re not doing renewable energy, China builds more renewable energy than the rest of the world put together.

It just means that the lens through which they judge policy is cheap energy and the need for electrification, particularly in the age of AI.

Britain’s emissions are under 1% of global emissions, we can’t solve climate change, and to impose costs on our own businesses and consumers in order to accelerate net zero when the rest of the world is not doing so – I don’t understand the logic behind it, or shutting down our own oil and gas industry in circumstances where, again, I don’t know another country in the world that’s doing that.

This is more or less exactly the Conservative party’s position on net zero.

Asked if adopting this approach would made Miliband’s position untenable, Blair replied:

It’s really a question of explaining to the country, and to Ed, that right now we need to get growth levels up, we need to recognise with this AI revolution that we’re going to need cheap energy.

Blair and Miliband have been at odds with each other for more than a decade. Blair wanted Miliband’s brother David to win the Labour leadership contest in 2010, and he thought Miliband as leader was wrong to disown some of New Labour’s policies.

Blair says Labour needs debate about policy before it chooses new leader, as he criticises Burnham’s 40 years of failure claim

In his Today interview, Tony Blair said Labour needed to work out its policy agenda before choosing a leader.

Asked what he would say to Labour members being asked to choose between Andy Burnham or Wes Streeting, Blair replied:

My advice is choose your direction first and make sure that before you have any leadership change, you make all the candidates set out in detail their policy, what the Government’s got right, what it’s got wrong, what we should do differently.

Blair said:

I hope Andy wins Makerfield, I think he’s a great guy, I want to see him in parliament.

But you know, when he does this thing about 40 years of wasted … what, nothing good happened in that period of Thatcher with the business community, or New Labour?

I don’t think he really means that, but what I’m saying, if you’re going to change leader, you’ve really got to force people to say where they stand, because otherwise you’ll be in what I think was always a problem for Keir – and I’ll be very honest about this, and I like him and I wish him well – but when we switched from that Corbyn agenda, there wasn’t enough explanation.

Not as to why Corbyn was an election loser, that was pretty obvious, but why the whole agenda was wrong.

You have to explain to people why it’s wrong if you want to lead the party in the future in a coherent way.

Blair suggests Labour was wrong to protect pensions triple lock

In his Today interview, Tony Blair said the government should have done more to prioritise growth when it took office. He also suggested the pensions triple lock was not sustainable.

He said:

When it came in, it saw the state of the inheritance. I think at that point, of course, it would be difficult. Everything in politics is difficult, but if I’d been them, I’d say, look, all of these commitments, they may be very worthwhile. There may be proper commitments in easy times, but in these hard times, we’ve got to prioritise growth. We’ve got to prioritise support for the business sector, and this artificial intelligence revolution, we’ve got to grasp it, both its opportunities and its risks, with both hands.

And so, I think, yes, it would have been tough, but I think you could have explained to the country why it was necessary …

At some point you’ve got to be able to stand up and have an honest debate with the public, which is to say, look, ultimately we’re probably taxing people too much, spending too much, borrowing too much at the moment.

If we carry on like this with these large increases in incapacity benefit, with the triple lock on pensions, we’re going to create a situation where economically we’re not, we’re not able to grow because we put such a weight affecting growth on the back of our economy.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves did claim they were prioritising growth when they took office. But business leaders claim that higher taxes, especially the rise in employer national insurance, and stronger rights for workers have been bad for growth.

They have also kept the pensions triple lock because they pledged to do so in the 2024 manifesto. With the other main parties also committed to it in 2024, not promising to keep it was seen as too much of an electoral risk.

Blair says Labour won 2024 election because it was ‘acceptable alternative’, not because of its manifesto

In his interview on the Today programme, Tony Blair said Labour won the election in 2024 because it was “an acceptable alternative” – not because voters liked what was in its manifesto.

He said:

Let’s be clear, I don’t think Labour won the last election because people read the manifesto and said, ‘this is what we want’.

I think people thought that Conservatives have behaved completely unacceptably, and to Keir Starmer’s great credit, the Labour party was an acceptable alternative.

Minister rejects Blair’s critique of Starmer’s government, accusing ex-PM of retreading arguments from Labour’s past

Good morning. Labour is in the midst of ‘phoney war’ leadership contest. The formal bit has not started yet, but Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting are already actively engaged, Angela Rayner is taking an interest, and Keir Starmer is defending his legacy with renewed vigour. The last thing anyone expected was for Tony Blair to join in.

But he has, sort of, with a 5,700-word essay, published last night on his thinktank’s website, setting out where the former PM thinks his part is going wrong (on most things, it seems) and what he thinks it should do next. Blair, of course, won’t be a candidate in the leadership contest, but ideas matter in politics and this essay is chock-full of them.

Here is Jessica Elgot’s story on what he says. She says Blair has accused Starmer, Burnham and Streeting of putting Labour’s future at risk by abandoning the centre ground, warning that the party’s “almost infinite capacity for self-delusion” means it is likely to lose the next election.

And here is Peter Walker’s analysis.

Peter says the Blair essay is the work of “a man who worries deeply that the party he once led, plus the UK more widely, is stuck in a loop of insular political debate, not even beginning to get to grips with what he portrays as the century-defining challenge – and opportunity – of AI”. But Peter also points out that many in Labour are likely to regard Blair’s “call for a move to the ‘radical centre’ as somewhere between vague and meaningless”.

Quite a lot of what Blair says sounds as if it could have been written by Kemi Badenoch. Any other Tory leader would be championing this as vindication. But Badenoch seems to approach any argument on the basis that whatever someone from the left is saying must always be wrong, and she has not commented yet; perhaps she is still trying to compute how she and a former Labour PM could have ended up in the same place.

Blair has been on the Today programme this morning, and I will post highlights from his interview soon. Dan Tomlinson, a junior Treasury minister, has been the government voice in the broadcast studios and he has had the awkward job of trying to rebut criticism from the party’s most successful election winner. Tomlinson was respectful about Blair, and said he agreed with him on some points, but essentially he accused Blair of resurrecting old arguments about Old Labour v New Labour and not accepting that the world has moved on. He told BBC Breakfast:

I think [Blair’s] essay was about whether we’re New Labour or old Labour – that was a debate that was happening in the 1990s in the UK, which was pretty much around the time I was born. Things have moved on a lot since then.

And, on Times Radio, where he said the Old Labour/New Labour split was “just not where we are today”, Tomlinson said:

If we look at the jobs market, when Tony Blair was prime minister there weren’t really any people on zero-hour contracts. Now there are hundreds of thousands of people struggling with that uncertainty, so, yes, we are passing our employment rights legislation to give people more certainty in work.

There will be a lot more to say about the Blair essay, and reaction to it, as the day goes on.

There is not much in diary today – parliament is in recess – but we will see Starmer today when he signs a new defence treaty with Poland with Donald Tusk, the Polish PM, at an event outside London around lunchtime.

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